Chessboard and the DSS Commish

CATSKILL - A chessboard-style strategy is being utilized by Greene County Department of Social Services Commissioner Kira Pospesel, needing to keep a handle on the swelling and shifting realities of homelessness.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, in a recent report, declared that, “homelessness falls statewide, but rises in many regions.

“The decline of 12,459 was the largest among States, and was driven predominantly by New York City,” the report says.

“However, declines were not universal across the State. In 17 of 25 regions known as Continuums of Care, homelessness grew,” the report says.

“In 11 regions, it grew by more than 10 percent, with the highest increases in Columbia and Greene counties, Troy/Rensselaer County and Schenectady,” the report concludes. 

The soaring local figures, more than tripling, come as no great surprise to Pospesel, a regular visitor to the county legislature chambers, giving updates on what she unhesitatingly terms “a statewide crisis.”

Pospesel, in a subsequent phone interview acknowledged, “our numbers are through the roof” while looking beyond the data and statistics.

“The model we have [for handling homelessness] is an absolute failure,” Pospesel said, relying on a network of hotels, reiterating what she has steadfastly been telling lawmakers.

“We need a shelter,” Pospesel continued. “It is a failure by the county, not building a shelter. I say that at every meeting of department heads.

“A hotel is not what the clients need. It is what some of them want,” offering an absence of rules associated with a shelter, such as restrictions on smoking or alcohol, and amenities like TV, etc..

The homeless, “need services, not games and crazy things that can go on in a hotel,” Pospesel said. “They need a meal, health care, in some instances day care, mental stabilization.

“The goal of DSS is to treat whatever issues they have. People die in these situations. The pain and suffering I see…” Pospesel said, not finishing her thought. 

Homelessness is a complex subject. DiNapoli’s report hails the positive drop in the Big Apple while citing the “troubling increase” elsewhere, particularly in Greene and Columbia counties.

The Comptroller’s report does not offer specifics on what has happened to the 12,000-plus former homeless; whether they have established sustainable roots or simply gone somewhere else or off the grid.

And, despite the decline, the report says the share of homeless children “remains stubbornly high: at 31.7 percent,” pointing out that “New York’s rate is more than double that of the rest of the nation.”

Legislature chairman Patrick Linger has seen the DiNapoli report, saying, “I don’t agree with it at all,” in terms of the factual analysis.

There is no disputing the upward homeless population in the county but the issue is larger than bar graphs. “This boils down to the State mandating things but not paying for them,” Linger says.

“Some years back we were going to do a 19-bed shelter” on county-owned land adjacent to the county jail in the town of Coxsackie, Linger said.

“Once you go above that bed count, there are more requirements such as meals and laundry facilities. We talked to Catholic Charities about maybe administering it. The requirements became onerous,” the chairman said.

“I would not say there is any talk about doing a shelter now. If the State requires us to do it we would have no choice but that is an enormous expense to put on our taxpayers,” Linger said.

Meanwhile, back at the DSS ranch, “Kira is pulling her hair out. She is the one tasked with putting people in housing. She is doing the best she possibly can with what she has,” Linger added.

Lawmaker Michael Bulich (District 1, Catskill), was critical of the State report, opining that DiNapoli is a “flat our liar.”

Bulich, a frequent objector of State policies, questioned whether Greene County should be obliged to house out-of-county homeless.

“We should really look at who our actual residents are before discussing a potential shelter. I understand Kira saying what she does,” Bulich said.

“It would make her life a lot easier but that opens a whole can of worms and would be beyond measure expensive,” Bulich added.

Greene County DSS remains on the homelessness front lines. The current hotel system, “is such a waste of taxpayer dollars,” Pospesel said. “It’s not just DSS money. It involves law enforcement too.

“We are chasing these people around, Monday through Friday. We are calling in (county) law enforcement every day. What my team does is absolutely incredible.”

Pospesel says her experience reveals that, “if we had a shelter, the numbers [of homeless clients] would drop by 50 percent.

“They are coming here because of the model we have,” paying for hotel occupancies to the tune of $1.2 million in fiscal year 2025.

And the problem goes deeper than data. Greene County uses as many as nine hotels but that small network is tapped into by other counties.

“Every time I lose a room in one place, I have to find another room in another place,” Pospesel says, calling into play the chessboard.

Other counties are not required to notify Greene County, despite requests from local officials to establish lines of communication, resulting in seemingly infinite chess piece moves for the DSS.

There are shelters available in neighboring counties, but potential clients have reportedly also learned how to juggle the system, calling in after normal work hours, being sent to hotels rather than shelters.

It has not been put in action but the DSS, if necessary, has a Code Blue backup plan to transform the agency’s reception lobby into temporary refuge, an alternative widely considered an armageddon option.

In the meantime, lawmakers are not inclined to create a local shelter due to costs and the difficulties of finding a suitable site that could overcome an entrenched “Not in My Backyard” resistance by nearby residents.

“They (county legislators] think if we build a shelter they will come, but they are already here,” Porpesel said.

“The reality is any one of us could be two paychecks away from sitting in my lobby. We have people who have had a real crisis. There could be a severe medical issue.. A divorce with children. A fire,” she continued.

“We are Number One in putting people back to work,” Pospesel said, referencing a recent rating of excellence from New York State.

“There needs to be a main center where we can do our work. We are just warehousing people. Building a shelter is expensive but in the long run it would be less costly. It’s the right thing to do,” the Commissioner said.